'Rebels behind Houla massacre, US plan to destabilize Syria in full swing'

Published: 31 May, 2012, 23:57Edited: 01 June, 2012, 08:33

Damascus says a preliminary investigation showed armed groups carried out the Houla massacre. Earlier the government forces were blamed for the slaughter, which claimed lives of more than a hundred innocent citizens, including 32 children.

­The report says that up to 800 rebel fighters were involved in mass killing in Houla, a cluster of villages in Syria’s western Homs province, on May 25.

General Qassem Jamal Suleiman, head of the investigation committee, said that there were families which “refused to oppose the government and were at odds with the armed groups".

"Government forces did not enter the area where the massacre occurred, not before the massacre and not after it,'' Suleiman said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the aim was to create sedition in Syria adding that people who are trying to “ignite civil strife, will not succeed.”

US representative in the United Nations Susan Rice has called Syria’s preliminary report on the Houla massacre “a blatant lie”.

The massacre, which became one the deadliest single events since the beginning of uprisings in March 2011, has triggered a worldwide reaction with Western countries accusing the Assad regime of being behind the bloodshed.

At the same time, the UN suspects fighters known as "shabiha'' acting on behalf of Assad’s forces, stormed the villages, killing people.

On Friday the UN Human Rights Council will gather for a special session to address the massacre and present their findings. However, the information on which the UN body bases its conclusions and the way it was obtained raise questions.

Marinella Corregia, activist from the "No War Network," told RT the UN body questioned opposition only whom they reached by phone.

Another activist Sara Flounders from the International Action Center says that it is likely that UN will give absolutely different version of that happened in Houla, “because the whole purpose of the UN – peace mission – from the beginning has been to give a diplomatic cover to continued intervention in Syria,” she told RT.

The above image needs to be clicked on to enlarge it, and then read thoroughly. The BBC has yet again been caught out pushing propaganda on behalf of the war mongers of the Establishment. The latest incident features imagery of a child skipping over the bagged up corpses of slain civilians. According to the BBC, the corpses are those of Syrians murdered by the Syrian government, and are incontrovertible proof that the government of Bashar Al Assad must be overthrown. The so-called Houla Massacre is a complete fraud; the corpses are those of Kurds recovered from a mass grave in 2003 in Al Musayyib.

BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'

The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria.

The photograph was actually taken by Marco di Lauro in Iraq in 2003

By Hannah Furness

10:39PM BST 27 May 2012

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.

The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.

The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.

A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.

“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday's massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.

“Instead the picture was taken by me and it's on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam.

“What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn't check the sources and it's willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That's all.

He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it's that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it's a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.

“Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda on purpose.”

A spokesman for the BBC said: “We were aware of this image being widely circulated on the internet in the early hours of this morning following the most recent atrocities in Syria.

“We used it with a clear disclaimer saying it could not be independently verified.

“Efforts were made overnight to track down the original source of the image and when it was established the picture was inaccurate we removed it immediately.”

yialousa1971 wrote:'Rebels behind Houla massacre, US plan to destabilize Syria in full swing'

Published: 31 May, 2012, 23:57Edited: 01 June, 2012, 08:33

Damascus says a preliminary investigation showed armed groups carried out the Houla massacre. Earlier the government forces were blamed for the slaughter, which claimed lives of more than a hundred innocent citizens, including 32 children.

­The report says that up to 800 rebel fighters were involved in mass killing in Houla, a cluster of villages in Syria’s western Homs province, on May 25.

General Qassem Jamal Suleiman, head of the investigation committee, said that there were families which “refused to oppose the government and were at odds with the armed groups".

"Government forces did not enter the area where the massacre occurred, not before the massacre and not after it,'' Suleiman said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the aim was to create sedition in Syria adding that people who are trying to “ignite civil strife, will not succeed.”

US representative in the United Nations Susan Rice has called Syria’s preliminary report on the Houla massacre “a blatant lie”.

The massacre, which became one the deadliest single events since the beginning of uprisings in March 2011, has triggered a worldwide reaction with Western countries accusing the Assad regime of being behind the bloodshed.

At the same time, the UN suspects fighters known as "shabiha'' acting on behalf of Assad’s forces, stormed the villages, killing people.

On Friday the UN Human Rights Council will gather for a special session to address the massacre and present their findings. However, the information on which the UN body bases its conclusions and the way it was obtained raise questions.

Marinella Corregia, activist from the "No War Network," told RT the UN body questioned opposition only whom they reached by phone.

Another activist Sara Flounders from the International Action Center says that it is likely that UN will give absolutely different version of that happened in Houla, “because the whole purpose of the UN – peace mission – from the beginning has been to give a diplomatic cover to continued intervention in Syria,” she told RT.

A senior Syrian military officer has described how he defected to opposition forces after witnessing hundreds of pro-regime militiamen carry out the now infamous massacre of more than 100 civilians in the town of Houla one week ago.

lRaslan said he was in his house, around 300 metres from the site of the first massacre in the village of Taldous, when several hundred men whom he knew to be Shabiha members rode into town in cars and army trucks and on motorbikes.

"A lot of them were bald and many had beards," he said. "Many wore white sports shoes and army pants. They were shouting: 'Shabiha forever, for your eyes, Assad.' It was very obvious who they were.

"We used to be told that armed groups killed people and the Free Syria Army burned down houses," he said. "They lied to us. Now I saw what they did with my own eyes."

He said the killings in his area were over in around 15 minutes. However, the rampage in other parts of Houla continued until the early hours of Saturday, according to eye-witnesses and survivors.

"Those victims who were slaughtered are people that I knew well," Raslan said. "These children I knew well, personally. I ate with their families. I had social ties with them. The regime cannot lie about these people, who they were and what they did to them. It was a brutal act by the regime against people who were with the revolution," he said.

Raslan said that he served on a missile base in Tartous, removed from the grinding everyday savagery of Syria's uprising. "I knew they had been lying, but I had not been exposed to the effects of it. This was the first time I had seen anything like this."

And the question remains: Shiites or Sunnis? How can people belonging to the same nation massacre like that their neighbors just because they belong to a different religious dogma or rival political fraction or whatever? What would they be doing if they were against non Muslim "infidels"?

P.S. The fact that the hooded butchers were shouting "Shabiha" or whatever does not exactly persuade me completely although I can not doubt it either. But judging from Bosnia where Muslims were shelling Muslim civilians in the middle of crowded market squares I will keep being sceptical till some of them are identified or confess.

the supposedly Christian Irish managed to do it... both the "prods" and the "papists" - and look at the 30 years war in Europe.

I don't have a particular problem if any individual wishes to belive some myth about any alleged god or creationist theories but I do object when they try to force their views on others and use thier own twisted beliefs to justify acts of oppression (as in Iran) or Violence, where the Moslem faith supoosedly promises heaven to the those who scarifice themsleves in the name of Allah and no doubt to the innocents who are scarificed for a supposedly higher cause.

If there is a heaven and hell (and I am sceptical ) then I hope preachers and practices of religeous hatred rot in hell. If there is n't - then won't they be disappointed. (if they were in state to realise it)

hhttp://www.debka.com/article/22094/Rus ... -in-Syria-“biggest-Mid-East-maneuver”-Middle East military tensions around Syria shot up again Monday, June 18, with the news reported by the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars that a joint Russian-Chinese-Iranian exercise is to take place in Syria.It was described as “the biggest of its kind ever staged in the Middle East” with 90,000 personnel, 400 air planes and 900 tanks taking part.As part of its preparations, Beijing is reported to have asked Egyptian authorities to permit the passage through the Suez Canal in late June of 12 naval ships heading for the Syrian port of Tartus, where Moscow maintains a naval and marine base. DEBKAfile reported earlier this week that Russian naval vessels with marines on board were heading for Tartus. The Iranian media did not itemize their contribution to the joint exercise.

WASHINGTON — A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said. The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so. The clandestine intelligence-gathering effort is the most detailed known instance of the limited American support for the military campaign against the Syrian government. It is also part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has recently escalated his government’s deadly crackdown on civilians and the militias battling his rule. With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the United States and its allies have instead turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr. Assad from power.

Moscow is using the time up until Russian President Vladimir Putin faces US President Barack Obama across the G20 conference table in Los Cabos, Mexico Sunday, June 17 - or in its corridors - to ship sophisticated arms to Syria able to prevent a no-fly zone and a fleet of warships to the Mediterranean port of Tartus.While Pentagon sources Friday disclosed the approach of a “small contingent” of Russian warships to Tartus, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources have discovered that heading for the Russian base at this Syrian port is a Russian fleet that includes Ropucha-toad or Project 775 class landing-craft carrying Russian marines. Each craft can carry 250 marine personnel and 500-ton armored vehicles.And flying overhead are Russian air transports that are touching down at Syrian air bases bearing, according to our sources, a variety of sophisticated munitions for the Syrian army: advanced Russian Pantsyr-S1 anti-air missiles capable of hitting fighter-bombers flying at an altitude of 12 kilometers and cruise missiles; self-propelled medium range anti-air Buk-M2 missiles (NATO codenamed SA-11). They are capable of downing aircraft flying at an altitude of 14 kilometers and Mach 32 speed; and shore-based Bastion anti-ship missiles which can reach vessels sailing 300 kilometers out to sea.

Moscow is using the time up until Russian President Vladimir Putin faces US President Barack Obama across the G20 conference table in Los Cabos, Mexico Sunday, June 17 - or in its corridors - to ship sophisticated arms to Syria able to prevent a no-fly zone and a fleet of warships to the Mediterranean port of Tartus.While Pentagon sources Friday disclosed the approach of a “small contingent” of Russian warships to Tartus, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources have discovered that heading for the Russian base at this Syrian port is a Russian fleet that includes Ropucha-toad or Project 775 class landing-craft carrying Russian marines. Each craft can carry 250 marine personnel and 500-ton armored vehicles.And flying overhead are Russian air transports that are touching down at Syrian air bases bearing, according to our sources, a variety of sophisticated munitions for the Syrian army: advanced Russian Pantsyr-S1 anti-air missiles capable of hitting fighter-bombers flying at an altitude of 12 kilometers and cruise missiles; self-propelled medium range anti-air Buk-M2 missiles (NATO codenamed SA-11). They are capable of downing aircraft flying at an altitude of 14 kilometers and Mach 32 speed; and shore-based Bastion anti-ship missiles which can reach vessels sailing 300 kilometers out to sea.